Lake Trip
by GoesKaboom
Summary: Pein decides he's sick of his organization moping around the lair, so he decides it's time for a mandatory vacation. Of course, nothing ever goes as planned. Crack fic. Completed.
1. Mandatory Vacation

Lake Trip

**Author's Note: I wasn't going to do a disclaimer, but this car full of lawyers parked on my lawn and won't leave until I do, so here goes: I don't own _Naruto_. **

Chapter One: Mandatory Vacation

"But I don't want to!" Hidan was pitching a very loud, very obnoxious fit. "Why should I have to go to some fucking lame-ass lake?"

"Because," Pein pontificated. "No one in this organization has taken a vacation since the disastrous Hoshigaki family reunion four years ago." Konan nodded in agreement.

"We need to go on a trip," she said. "Staying in the same place all of the time is bad for the health. None of us have gone on any missions in months. No one has done anything other than watch television or do paperwork in weeks! This will be a good chance for everyone to relax and rejuvenate."

"You sound like a commercial for that new day spa that opened in town," Hidan groused. Konan rolled her eyes.

"Pein? Back me up on this?"

"Enough of your insubordination!" Pein yelled. "You're going to Big Moose Lake with the rest of us or your pay is getting docked! And you can say goodbye to having any paid leave for your religious holidays, too!"

* * *

Nearly two weeks ago, Deidara had gone off on an explosive rant. And I do mean _explosive_- he was so upset about being cooped up in the lair doing paperwork all day that he blew the roof off. Needless to say, no one was too pleased with the resident pyromaniac, especially since it rained that night.

But they did have to concede that Deidara had a point. The past eight months had been incredibly boring. No one had gone on any missions, due to a lack of things that actually required missions to obtain. What there was a lot of, on the other hand, was paperwork. Every day seemed to bring more and more forms to fill out. And when they weren't doing paperwork? Everyone did one of two things: sleep or watch Antiques Roadshow on the television.

It took Deidara blowing the roof to kingdom come before Pein realized that he couldn't keep doing this. He couldn't expect his organization to be of any use if they were bored out of their minds. So he started looking around for interesting things to do.

"How would you all like to go skiing?" he asked one day.

"Are you insane?" Zetsu's dark side had spat. "Are you trying to kill me? I'm a damn _plant!_ I can't go where there's goddamned _snow!"_

"Who wants to go to the hot springs in Iwagakure?" was Pein's next attempt at getting interest in a vacation stirred up.

"I don't know if you forgot," Deidara replied, "but that used to be my village. They'll kill me on site-un."

"Can't you just blow them up?" Pein had asked. Deidara snorted.

"I could, but then I'd have to go visit my cousin. If I went back to Iwa and didn't stop by to see her, she'd chase me all across the world, even if I blew up the rest of the village!" So at Deidara's insistence, the hot springs were out.

"What about Sunflower Town?" was the next suggestion. Sunflower Town was a very popular amusement park, and for a time, it seemed as though it would be a viable option. But then, two things came to light.

"We can't afford it!" Kakuzu howled. "Even if we got just one hotel room and did Dine-N-Ditch for all our meals, we still can't do it! We are not paying to go to some damn amusement park in the middle of nowhere!"

"I get motion sickness on amusement rides," Tobi added apologetically. So Sunflower Town was out.

For a time, it seemed as though the organization was doomed to an endless monotony of paperwork and television. But then, Pein had one final idea.

When he was a child, he had gone to a beautiful, remote lake far from any interference and stayed in a rustic resort. Big Moose Lake was a lovely option! It would be inexpensive, and had something for everyone. Kakuzu crunched the numbers, and even he was pleasantly surprised at the cost. Four bedrooms in a spacious lake house for a week would cost a day's salary, and Pein agreed to pay it from his pocket.

Most of the organization was thrilled. Itachi ran out and bought six pairs of swim trunks as soon as heard the news. Deidara procured a seemingly endless supply of floaty toys, and surprisingly, a motor boat. He refused to tell anyone where the boat was from, but everyone had their suspicions- a day after Deidara showed up with his new boat in tow, a story broke that a boat dealership had been rocked by several small explosions, resulting in the loss of nearly a million dollars-worth of merchandise. Zetsu made some phone calls and secured three jet-skis for use from his sister. Kisame was so thrilled to be going on vacation that he gave everyone scuba masks. No one asked where said scuba masks came from. Tobi decided that they would need more stylish transportation while they were on vacation, and secured two expensive rental cars for free.

But not everyone was excited about mandatory vacation. Hidan's biggest complaint was that it would interfere with his worship schedule. Supposedly, their little trip was falling on an important Jashinist holiday, but Pein was skeptical. Snack-And-Sacrifice Day sounded kind of made up to him...

Sasori wasn't too thrilled about traveling. Either. He protested that water and sun would warp his body.

"Get a power-sander, you big baby!" was Pein's not-so-sympathetic reply. Sasori glowered, but nothing was going to change the fact that if he wanted to keep his job, he was going on vacation. They all were.

As Hidan would say, "Jashin help us all."

To Be Continued

Author's Comments-

It's been a while since I wrote an Akatsuki crack multichapter... ahh, it's nice to get back to lighter stories, especially since the past few months really haven't been the greatest.

I want to go on a lake trip...

-Kaboom


	2. Beer On The Wall

Chapter Two: Beer on the Wall

"99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer! Take one down and pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall!" The two cars full of Akatsuki members were en route to Big Moose Lake, and poor Hidan had gotten stuck in the car containing Deidara, Tobi, and Itachi, who were currently boisterously singing what was probably the most obnoxious song in the history of obnoxious songs.

"I still don't understand why you assholes are so happy about this damn trip," Hidan groused. Of course, Deidara found his irritation quite amusing and only increased the volume of the singing.

"97 bottles of beer on the wall, 97 bottles of beer-un!" Itachi and Tobi was just as equally amused, and joined in with the singing. "Take one down and pass it around, 96 bottles of beer on the wall!"

"You sound like a bunch of ignorant, drunk fuckers!" Hidan ranted. No one paid his any attention.

"96 bottles of beer on the wall, 96 bottles of beer!"

"I expected better of you, Itachi," Hidan continued, ignoring the fact that he himself was being ignored. "You never seemed like the type to get caught up in the fuckwittery of these assholes! You always seem so calm and stoic. What happened to you?"

"I guess I just want a beer," Itachi replied, before joining back in with the singing. Hidan just huffed. Why were they acting so _stupid_? Had they taken idiot pills with breakfast? Did someone spike their morning coffee? Did they inhale too much carbon dioxide when they were blowing up the inflatable floaty things? Or was it that they were just honestly excited about this trip? But of course, it didn't matter what he thought. He was of no importance to the musical morons.

Meanwhile, in the other car, Zetsu had taken it upon himself to provide the travel entertainment, by singing the exact same song in harmony with himself. "99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer! Take one down and pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall!" His dark side kept the bass line going with it's deep, gravelly voice, while his light side's tenor added spice to the melody.

"No matter how many times I hear Zetsu sing, it's still bizarre," Konan remarked. "I think he's probably the only singer in the world who can make a chord with his own voice!"

"We do have some very talented people in this organization," Pein agreed.

"That song is absolutely ridiculous," Kakuzu said. "Do you have any idea how much money 99 bottles of beer would cost? Especially when you add in the cost of the shelves or other holders to _keep_ the bottles of beer on the wall!"

"Leave it to Kakuzu to think about the economics of a song sung by drunk people in bars and bored children on car trips!" Kisame exclaimed. Sasori rolled his eyes.

"It's like the Twelve Days Of Christmas all over again," he grumbled. "For the last time, Kakuzu, no one cares about how much a partridge in a pear tree costs!"

"Hey..." Konan interrupted. "Have you heard the beer version of the Twelve Days of Christmas?"

"No," Zetsu's light said, abruptly stopping his singing. "Tell me how it goes!" Konan smirked.

"On the first day of Christmas," she sang, "my true love gave to me a beer. On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a beer and a beer. On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a beer and a beer and a beer. On the fourth day of Christmas-" here, Kakuzu cut her off.

"While it seems more cost-effective than the original Twelve Days of Christmas, it might actually not be. Think of the medical bills you'd have to pay if you drank all of that beer!" he explained. Konan shook her head.

"No one is saying you'd have to drink all of the beer in one sitting."

"Why are we fighting over a stupid beer song?" Sasori asked irritably.

"Because we don't have anything better to do," Zetsu's dark side snapped. "Besides, it's better that we discuss beer than some other things. Unless you'd rather hear everyone's dirties stories? Because there was this one time at gardening camp..."

"For fuck's sake, Zetsu!" Kisame interrupted. "We don't need to hear your pollination stories or whatever the hell is it you do." Zetsu looked hurt.

"I do not _pollinate_, for your information," his light side snipped. "Yeah," his dark side added. "I can prove it to you if you want. I just need a willing volunteer.."

"GO BACK TO SINGING THE BEER SONG!" Pein yelled. "For the love of god, Zetsu, we don't want to know! And if you so much as _think_ lavicious thoughts I'm spraying you with weed-killer!"

"Ech..." Zetsu let out a strangled gasp. "No- no, I'll behave."

"Good."

"Hey!" Sasori suddenly interjected. "Look at that sign! 10 miles to Big Moose Lake!"

To Be Continued

Author's Comments:

I had a lot of fun writing this. And yes, I have sung 99 Bottles of Beer On The Wall to the end, much to the annoyance of my traveling companions. Seriously, you don't want to be in a car with me for eight hours. I get bored and start to lose my mind.

In other news, classes have started back up again, and I've been ridiculously busy. Plus, the ragweed is back with a vengeance, and I'm so allergic to that stuff. I've been sneezing so much that I'm amazed I haven't exploded. Those factors combined made it difficult for me to type more than a few sentences at a time- I've been trying to type up this chapter for a week! FML!

As much as I hate the cold I almost can't wait for the first frost to come and kill the damn ragweed.

-Kaboom


	3. Creepy Portraits, Ghosts, and Roommates

Chapter Three: Creepy Portraits, Ghosts, and Roommates

After a very beer-obsessed trip, everyone finally made it to the lake house they were renting. Hidan jumped out of the car and scrambled towards the front door like a madman just as Itachi, Tobi, and Deidara finished singing. "Take one down and pass it around... zero bottles of beer on the waaaaaaalllll!"

"Make it stop!" Hidan wailed. "Please, Jashin-sama! Save me!"

"What in the world are you talking about?" Pein asked irately as he shoved Hidan out of the way to open the door. "Can't you even handle a simple car trip without going off the deep end?"

"But they sang 99 Fucking Bottles of Beer On The Wall!" Hidan whined. "Do you know how fucking horrible that is?"

"Actually, I don't. I've never heard of a song called 99 Fucking Bottles of Beer On The Wall. I can imagine that it must be quite an interesting song. I'd never thought that beer bottles could engage in the reproductive act," Pein deadpanned. Hidan just glared at him.

"You _know_ what I meant!" he huffed. Pein smirked.

"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't," he replied. "Just be grateful that it was only the beer song you had to endure. Zetsu tried to tell us his pollination stories from gardening camp."

"HEY!" Zetsu's dark side shouted. "I already told you- I DON'T POLLINATE!"

"Yeah, yeah," Pein muttered, sticking the key in the lock. The door clicked open and everyone stepped into a sparsely decorated main room. Wicker chairs with cushions surrounded a small television set, and a rather ugly portrait of an angry-looking old woman loomed large over the room.

"Uh... nice place," Tobi said to break the silence.

"Just like I remember it!" Pein exclaimed rapturously. "I've never been in this particular lake house, but around here they're all more or less the same, right down to the poky chairs!" He sank into one and promptly lept up again muttering curses under his breath. "ESPECIALLY the poky chairs."

"Who's the old bat?" Kakuzu asked, pointing to the portrait.

"Sayo Hidaka," Kisame replied. Kakuzu blinked.

"How did you know that?"

"It's what the name-plate said. 'Sayo Hidaka- Born January 26, 1799. Died October 31, 1880. Maybe she was the one who built the house?" Kisame suggested.

"How creepy..." Tobi said. "She died on Halloween."

"Did you say 'Hidaka' was her surname?" Itachi asked sharply. Kisame looked rather alarmed.

"Yeah, that's what it said," he replied. "Why?"

"Because when we were growing up," Itachi explained, "my brother had a book of ghost stories. I remember there being one about the ghost of an old woman who haunts a lake. I can't remember the name of the lake, or the ghost's given name, but I do remember her surname being Hidaka."

"That's ridiculous," Sasori sighed. "Honestly, you all are so childish. Everyone knows ghosts don't exist."

"Don't be so sure," Deidara warned. "Don't speak in absolutes. You never know when you might be proven wrong. And besides, I've seen a ghost-un. She was the ghost of a young woman who drowned in the hot springs in Iwagakure. Apparently if you see her before you take your Academy exam, you'll fail. It's a good thing I saw her two days after I passed!"

"Oh, come off it," Hidan snorted. "Deidara, you did not see the ghost of a young woman. Jashin-sama does not allow those who die to become ghosts- they either get a second chance at life to serve him, admission into his afterlife, or suffer eternal torment in Hell."

"We can debate the existence of ghosts until the cows come home," Pein said. Everyone looked at him, amused and confused by the colloquial expression. "What? We can. It will take forever to reach a consensus, especially if Hidan decides to give us a theology lesson. What we _do_ need to decide on is room assignments. There are four bedrooms in this house. Konan gets her own-"

"HEY!" a chorus of protests broke out.

"She's a lady," Pein said. "We can't expect a lady to share a room with a herd of men!"

"That's sexist!" Zetsu's dark side said, well, darkly. Konan rolled her eyes.

"You know, Pein, I really don't care who I stay with," she sighed. But Pein wasn't hearing any complaints from her.

"To protect your virtue you will have your own room! Anyone who doesn't like this can sleep in the car and not get paid for the next month!" There was a lot of grumbling at this, but no one was too excited at the prospect of a pay cut, so they stayed silent.

"Now then, Itachi, Kisame, and Zetsu in one room, Tobi, Deidara, and Sasori in another, and me in the last one." Once again, this provoked outrage.

"How come _you_ get your own room!?" Deidara shouted.

"And what are Hidan and I supposed to do?" Kakuzu groused. "Sleep in the car?"

"Shit," Pein swore. "I forgot about you two. I suppose you can stay with me. But piss me off and you really will be sleeping in the car. Now, let's unload this crap and _start our vacation!"_

To Be Continued


	4. Boat Outing

Chapter Four: Boat Outing

"Now that we're all settled in," Pein announced randomly, "I think it's time we took Deidara's boat out for a spin!"

"Who said we're settled in?" Hidan shouted, outraged. "I am most definitely not fucking 'settled in!' I can't find my fucking suitcase! I bet you stupid fuckers left it back at the fucking lair!" He rounded on Tobi and Deidara, malice glinting in his eyes. "Where is it?!" Deidara and Tobi glanced at each other in alarm. Had they remembered to put Hidan's stuff in the car?"

"Would this be it?" a bored voice behind them asked. Itachi was standing in the doorway, a suitcase covered in Jashinist symbols at his feet.

"My bag!" Hidan exclaimed, running forward to claim it. "Where did you find it?"

"In the boat," came Itachi's replied. Hidan scowled.

"Who's idea was it to put my suitcase in the fucking boat?" he snarled. "What a damn stupid idea!"

"Uh, it was yours," Zetsu's light side replied, while his dark side added, "Yeah! You can't even remember that? You must be going senile- I guess it evens happens to immortals!"

"I AM NOT SENILE! I'm not that old!" Hidan howled.

"ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!" Pein yelled. "I don't care if Hidan is senile or not! The only thing I care about is enjoying my vacation! And if we're going to enjoy our vacation, we need to get that boat in the water!"

* * *

The trip to the marina was fairly uneventful, probably due to the fact that Kakuzu had detached Hidan's complaining head and put it in the trunk. When Tobi protested his actions, saying that they were too harsh, Kakuzu merely shrugged.

"It's no trouble for me to reattach it when we reach our destination," he said.

Once they got to the marina, Kakuzu kept his word and reattached Hidan's swearing head. "I fucking hate you, Kakuzu, do you know that? You're a fucking bastard. Taking off my head was not fucking called for!"

"Yeah, yeah," Kakuzu dismissed. "Now shut up or I'll sew your mouth shut."

Tobi and Deidara decided to go check out the boats that were docked. "Check out the yacht!" Deidara exclaimed. "I'm sure it belongs to someone too rich to even be alive... maybe I should steal it-un!"

"You can't steal a yacht!" Tobi replied. "It's too conspicuous. Maybe if it was from a boat dealership, like where you stole the motor-boat from, but you know that someone who owns their own yacht would probably have put hundreds of special features on it! They'd be able to tell their yacht from a mile away!" Deidara nodded.

"Good point. What if we just board it and see if they have any expensive fancy food on board?" he suggested. He and Tobi were nearly halfway up the ladder when Itachi spotted them.

"Are you two stupid? Get down from there!" he exclaimed. "What are you even doing?"

"Rich people own yachts," came Deidara's reply. "We thought we'd go see what kinds of things rich people keep on their yachts! Maybe there would be some Dom Perignon, or caviar!"

"Why in the world would people keep _caviar_ on a boat?" Itachi asked. "You need to refrigerate that shit!"

"But it's a yacht," Tobi said. "Yachts have refrigerators."

"YO!" Pein noticed what was going on around the yacht. "Tobi! Deidara! Get down from there! We don't have time for you two to act stupid!" Tobi and Deidara climbed down, muttering mutinously.

"I really wanted Dom Perignon," Deidara pouted. Pein just looked at him like he had just admitted that he wanted a glass of ammonia.

"If you really want Dom Perignon you should get it through your own hard work!" Pein proclaimed. This time, it was Deidara's turn to look confused.

"But we're criminals, you know-un."

Getting the boat in the water took a little doing, and it took a fair bit of time. Konan slipped on the mossy ramp and landed ass-first in the lake, and Kisame fell off the dock, much to the amusement of everyone else. Hidan was still pissy about having his head removed.

"You fucking bastard!" he groused. "What kind of asshole takes a guy's head off and puts it in the trunk?"

"The kind who doesn't want to hear the complaining that comes from the head!" Kakuzu retorted. "Now unless you want me to feed your head to the fishes, SHUT UP!"

The process to get the boat in the lake was hell. No one was going to deny that. But once everyone was enjoying the boat ride, it didn't seem to be a problem anymore.

"I'M ON A BOAT! I'M ON A BOAT! EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME CUZ I'M SAILING ON A BOAT!" Deidara and Itachi sang gleefully.

"Oh for crying out loud," Sasori tried to sound grumpy, but even he couldn't hide the smile that crept onto his face. "You two spend too much time on the Internet!"

"Let them have their fun," Konan said. Then, she narrowed her eyes. "ZETSU! The lake is not your personal sushi bar! Spit that fish out!" Zetsu had caught a fish and was about to have a snack.

"Damn..." his light side muttered. "So close, too!"

"Now then," Pein said happily. "Let's see what this boat can do!" And he hit the accelerator.

To Be Continued

Author's Comments:

I have the day off today, so I thought I might as well update. Hope you enjoyed.

-Kaboom


	5. Marooned

Chapter Five: Marooned

"You complete _idiot!_" Konan shouted at Pein as she clambered onto the beach from the wreckage of the boat. "This was a brand-new boat and you _crashed_ it! And all because you wanted to see how fast the damn thing would go? Is there no end to your stupidity?"

"But-" Pein started, but was cut off by Deidara.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH TROUBLE I WENT THROUGH TO GET THAT BOAT-UN?!" he hollered. "Boats don't grow on trees, you know! I can't believe you crashed my brand-new boat!"

"Calm down, I'll raise your salary so you can buy another boat!" Pein tried to appease the explosive artist, but Deidara wasn't having any of that.

"I want a new boat next payday!" he exclaimed. Pein rolled his eyes.

"Fine. You can have a new boat!"

"Normally I would complain about the frivolous expense," Kakuzu responded. He had managed to disengage himself from a particularly stubborn clump of aquatic weeds, and had heard the entire conversation. "But you _did_ wreck Deidara's boat. Ther least you could do is get him another one!"

"And Pein," Konan interrupted, "you're not allowed to drive the car for the rest of this trip! There will be a bigger problem than just the loss of a boat if you crash the rental car! Insurance won't pay for that!"

"Uh, guys..." Itachi mumbled. "I think we might have a problem."

"Well, _that_ much is obvious," Zetsu's dark side snarked. "We're god-knows-where with no boat!"

"I think it's a little more serious than that," Itachi replied, not rising to Zetsu's baiting.

"What do you mean?" Kisame asked.

"I can't be the only one who noticed the lack of swear words in this conversation, right?" Itachi said. The group stared blankly at one another, until it finally hit Konan.

"Oh my god!" she cried out. "Hidan! Where's Hidan?!"

"And that's not the only problem," Deidara added. "I don't see Sasori-danna or Tobi-un."

"Shit!" Pein swore. "What the hell is it going to take before we actually start having a good vacation?"

"Uh, maybe if you wouldn't crash the damn boat," Kisame said. "This was most enjoyable until we ran aground."

"We can't just stand around here!" Konan exclaimed frantically. "Every minute we temporize we increase the risk of losing vital members of our organization. They could have drowned by now!"

"Hidan won't be dead," Kisame replied practically.

"Well, _that_ much is obvious!" Zetsu's dark side exclaimed. "Tell us something that's not _obvious_!"

"Hidan might be immortal," Konan said darkly, "but in case you forgot, Tobi and Sasori are not. They could be dead by now! We have to do something!"

"Alright!" Pein suddenly yelled. "Everyone, let's salvage what we can from the boat and then we'll split up into search parties. It's getting dark, and I don't want anyone else to get lost. So let's all meet up here in an hour. I'll stay here and build a signal fire for you all to find your way back."

"Oh no you don't," a dangerous voice intoned behind him. Pein gulped and turned around to see a very angry Konan. "You got us into this mess! The reason the three of them are missing is because of your overconfident stupidity! _You're_ coming with me before you burn down the whole damn lakeside community! Let's leave Itachi here. He's more responsible, and besides, he doesn't see well in the dark anyway. It would be safer for him to stay behind."

"Yeah, I'm cool with that," Itachi replied .

"They're right, you know," Light Zetsu agreed. Pein opened his mouth as if to protest, but realized he would get little to no support from his organization. And honestly, if he really searched his soul, he couldn't really blame them. After all, he was the moron who crashed a boat into the freakin' land. It would have been more understandable and forgivable if it had been another boat, Pein thought ruefully. After all, it's pretty hard to hit the land. It's not like it _goes_ anywhere...

"...fine," he finally muttered. Just because he could understand why they were angry with him didn't mean he had to accept it!

"Good," Konan nodded. "We all agree then: we'll be back here in an hour. Itachi will make a signal fire. If you get lost just look for the smoke!"

"Yes ma'am!" everyone chorused.

To Be Continued

Author's Comments:

Happy Halloween, everyone. I hope you're all having a better Halloween then I am... I've had a headache all day and it just won't go the hell away. And it's only going to get worse... dinging doorbells at all hours of the night don't do a whole lot to help headaches. I've got plans to eat the damn candy that's supposed to be for the trick-or-treaters though... nom nom nom. NOM NOM NOM, DAMMIT!

...is it too early to say Bah Humbug!?

Anyway, have a great holiday! :)

-Kaboom

﻿


	6. Where Am I?

Chapter Six: Where Am I?

Darkness- that was all that Hidan saw. An eyeball-crushing, soul-consuming darkness. And he was not happy about it. "What the blue fuck is going on here?!" he complained, expecting a sarcastic retort from one of the others. But there was nothing. He tried again. "Fuck! What did you fucking fuckers do?" But again, there was nothing.

What had happened? The last things Hidan remembered were a lot of screaming, and then an impact. Wait a minute- hadn't he been on a boat? He grimaced as the "I'm On A Boat" started playing in his head. But if he had been on a boat, then where _was_ the boat? And boats were usually on lakes, weren't they? Where was the lake? If the boat had crashed, wouldn't it make sense that he would be in a puddle of water, at the very least? But Hidan was not in any puddle of water. His clothes were sodden and his shoes made squishing sounds when he walked, but he was very far away from any body of water, puddle, lake, or otherwise.

What in the world was going on? Hidan briefly entertained the idea that he was dead, but that was ridiculous. After all, as a follower of Jashin, he wouldn't die unless he became an apostate. And Hidan would never betray his god! So he couldn't be dead. Standing up and orienting himself to his surroundings, Hidan saw that he was on a beach of some kind. Well, that would make sense. There were hundreds of beaches surrounding Big Moose Lake.

But no matter where Hidan looked, there seemed to be something important missing: other Akatsuki members. Surely they had to be around here somewhere! Even though Hidan knew it was a damn stupid idea, he decided to leave the relative safety of the beach to go find his teammates. Oh, and when he did, were they _ever_ in for it!

* * *

When he came to, Sasori started swearing obnoxiously. Hiruko had broken. What had even happened that could cause his puppet-body to break? Oh right. Pein had been driving the boat when he decided to see how fast it could go. He must have lost control and crashed. Disentangling himself from what used to be his body, Sasori got ready to scream at his leader for being so careless. However, a few seconds later he realize that the leader in question was nowhere to be found.

"Shit," the puppet-master though. "Why does this always happen? Why can't we ever go on a normal trip?" He tried to test his luck by yelling for his teammates: "DEIDARA? ITACHI? HIDAN?" All he got in response was the echo.

Something was definitely wrong here, Sasori decided. If the boat had crashed under normal circumstances the entire organization would be in the same mess. But they weren't. Sasori's eyebrows furrowed. Had the young Uchiha done something? It honestly wouldn't surprise him if that were the case- Sasuke and his little friends were getting more bold in their attacks. Why, just two weeks ago Sasori had seen reported on the television news that the girl, Karin, or whatever her name was, had been detained for attacking a jewelry store clerk. The random guy's crime? He looked vaugely like Itachi. And the girl's rationale? Sasuke had ordered her to. At the time, Sasori had dismissed it as typical teenage stupidity. After all, what self-respecting intelligent person would attack a random person who was quite obviously not a notorious criminal, seeing as he was working in a shop in broad daylight? But now he wasn't so sure. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. The b oat accident could easily be another badly thought-out attempt to annhilate Itachi.

With that rather disturbing thought in mind, Sasori made up his mind to find his teammates, and he would then kill Sasuke. It would be his revenge for wrecking Hiruko!

-

* * *

The first thing Tobi noticed was that he was on something soft, like a mattress. The next thing he noticed was that his body was covered with something incredibly soft and warm. His eyelids fluttered open, amd he realized that was, indeed, in a bed. But that wasn't the really strange part: he seemed to be in a bed in a storeroom full of random junk. An elderly lady who looked strangely familiar was sitting in a rocking chair, knitting. Tobi sat up.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" he asked. "Did you find me and bring me here?"

"Yes," the old woman replied. "I brought you here to ask you something. Have you seen my son?"

"Your son?"

"Yes," the old woman said, not looking up from her knitting. "He is relatively short. He has blonde hair, and as ashamed as I am to admit it, he looks like a girl. I haven't seen him in so long. I want to see my son!" Tobi started. Blonde hair? Effeminate? It couldn't be, could it? _Deidara's mother_ was sitting in front of him! Tobi had to admit that she was quite a bit older than he had expected- she obviously bore Deidara at a much older age than average.

"Actually ma'am," Tobi replied politely. "I think I might know your son. I can find him if you'll tell me where you found me- I think we were in a boat accident!" The old woman nodded, and turned to face Tobi. He was struck how dark her eyes were- looking into them was like looking into the void.

"All right," the old woman said. "I will take you there. But I wish to see my son. In return for me taking you there, you will take me to my son."

To Be Continued


	7. Meet Sayo

Chapter Seven: Meet Sayo

As soon as the strange old woman had given Tobi some soup, he demanded that she take him to the place where he had been found. The old woman agreed. "I would like to see my son," she said. "You remember our bargain, right? I won't forgive you if you lied to me."

"Why would I lie to you?" Tobi asked incredulously. "You're helping me out here! I don't lie to people who help me!"

She took him to the edge of the lake, and pointed at a slight indentation in the sand. "Here's where you washed up," she explained. "But I don't see any of the people you said you were with. Are you sure you were in a crash? Maybe you decided to go swimming and passed out?"

"I'm not that stupid!" Tobi replied heatedly.

"I wasn't saying you were," the old woman said. "But sometimes even people who are not stupid can make stupid decisions. My son, for instance! He said he was going out to go fishing, and he never came back! I think he must have fallen in and floated away."She began to sniff a little. "Not a day goes by that I don't miss him. I wish he would hurry up and come back!" Tobi placed a consoling hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sure I know where he is!" he exclaimed. "You won't have to worry about your son for much longer! Now I just have to find him first!" Tobi sat down on a piece of driftwood. "Now, where could they be? If they're not around here, then where would they go?"

"Wait a minute!" the old woman suddenly interjected. "What's that?" She pointed up at the horizon. Very faintly, a small red glow burned. "Some idiot made a fire! They'll burn the whole damn place down!"

"Maybe that's where they are!" Tobi said excitedly. "Come on, ma'am! I'm certain that's where your son is!"

"Well, if you're certain," the old woman replied, following the young man. She really didn't know where the orange-masked man got his energy...

* * *

Itachi was amusing himself by throwing random things on the fire. Acorns, pine-cones, squirrels... anything he could find to distract him from the boredom and general sense of unease that pervaded the area. And he couldn't deny- sitting around here at night was damn creepy. And the various and sundry sounds emanating from the woods did nothing to ease his mind. Of course, it also didn't help that he had remembered the ghost story.

Sayo Hidaka had been one of the first people to settle on the lake, in the year 1818, as a 19-year-old. Shortly thereafter, she met Kuon Hidaka and the two of them married. Two years later, their son Yuito was born. Two months after Yuito's birth, Kuon was in an accident while on the lake and drowned. Yuito was the only memento Sayo had of her beloved husband, and he was the most important thing in her life. Even though she did not have much money, she gave him everything he wanted, and treated him like a prince. And in return, Yuito loved his mother very much.

When he was in his early twenties, however, Yuito was tricked by a con-woman through a marriage scam. Devastated, the young man either took his own life, or was in so much despair that he fell overboard and drowned after telling his mother that he was going fishing. No one ever found his body, and his lonely mother spent the rest of her life waiting for her son, watching the lake, waiting for him to come back, carrying a basket of fish. She died at the old age of 81. Supposedly she still haunts the area around Big Moose Lake, waiting for her deceased son.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Something was coming, and Itachi didn't like the sound of it. "Oh my god,"he thought to himself. "What if there's _bears_ out there?" He activated his eyes, ready to Mangekyou the varmint to death if it dared to show itself. There was a rusting in the trees, and Itachi readied himself to attack.

'"ITACHI!" a very familiar, almost child-like voice called.

"Tobi? You're alive! My god, everyone thought you were dead!" Itachi exclaimed as soon as the masked man came into view. "Who's that with you?"

"Oh, she's the lady who helped me," Tobi replied blithely. "I promised I'd help her find her son."

"Her son?" Itachi asked. Something in Tobi's words unnerved him. "Ma'am, may I ask what your name is?"

"Huh? Oh, Sayo Hidaka," the old woman answered. Itachi's blood froze.

"Excuse me, ma'am," he addressed the ghost politely. "I need to have a private conversation with my friend here.. Can you excuse us for a moment?"

"Sure," the ghost replied, watching the fire intently. "Do you mind if I sit here?"

'"No, not at all," Itachi said. He grabbed Tobi and dragged him out of earshot. "You moron! What are you doing? Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"I told Deidara's mother that I'd take her to her son in return for helping me find you guys!" Tobi chirped.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Itachi swore. "Deidara's mother? What on earth gave you the impression that she was Deidara's mother?"

"She said she was looking for her son. When she described him, it sounded like she was talking about Deidara,"Tobi replied.

"You idiot! That's not Deidara's mother! Don't you remember the portrait of the old woman in the lake house?"

"Yeah," Tobi replied, not really sure where Itachi was taking this.

"SHE is Sayo Hidaka. I remembered the story about the ghost-woman. Her son told her he was going fishing, and then he disappeared! No one is sure what happened to him, and she spent the rest of her life waiting for him! Now she's spending her entire death waiting for him as well! You just led a potentially vengeful ghost to us! And you told her you knew where her son was- when she finds out that Deidara isn't her son, she might kill us all!"

"You... you can't be serious." Itachi couldn't see Tobi's face, but if he had to guess, he would say that all the blood drained from it. "What are we going to do now?"

"We'll have to think of something," Itachi muttered. "We'll just wait for the others..."

To Be Continued

Author's Comments:

I apologize for the long update time. Unfortunately, I don't have a good excuse. I am the dumbass who lost the draft as well as the outline. Well, I'm not sure lost is the right word for it. I'm 95% sure I know where it is. However, if it is where I think it is, there's a 100% chance I won't ever see it again. It would have been recycled at the end of the day just like everything else that gets left in the break-room that is recyclable. I _knew_ I should have just gotten my coffee and bogged off, but noooo, I had to sit there and work on this! And now I'm paying for my stupidity.

Anyway, I am not discontinuing this story. However, because of the lack of draft updates will take a little longer than they normally would. Again, I apologize.

-Kaboom


	8. Family Ties

Chapter Eight: Family Ties

Although Itachi and Tobi did their best to entertain the old woman and keep her occupied, their efforts had a less than desirable effect. "You told me you'd bring me to my son," Sayo said accusingly to Tobi. "Where is he?"

"Uh... well... he's out somewhere," Tobi replied. "I'm sure he'll be back soon enough."

"Yeah," Itachi agreed. "Please try to wait a little longer."

"I've been waiting so long to see my son again," the ghost sighed. "Forgive me. I've been so lonely for so long, that when I found out I could see my son one more time, I was very happy. I'm just impatient."

"Tobi, you dumbass! I can't believe you led this poor old lady on like that!" Itachi hissed at the orange-masked man once Sayo was out of earshot, forgetting how dangerous the ghost could potentially be. "I still can't figure out what in the world possessed you to lie to her like that!"

"I really thought she was talking about Deidara!" Tobi defended himself.

"YO!" a loud voice suddenly called out. "Where the fuck is everyone?" Hidan had apparently managed to find his way back to the campsite. "And who's the old woman, and what's she doing here?"

"Um, um, Hidan! I'd like you to meet Sayo Hidaka," Itachi said quickly. Hidan's eyes widened.

"Woah! You mean she's-" Itachi quickly cut him off.

"Yes," he said shortly.

"Is everything alright?" Sayo asked, coming up behind the two of them. "Is there anything I can help you with?" Suddenly, Itachi had an idea.

"Ma'am, can you tell us about your son?" he asked. "You know, just so we can know who we're waiting for?" Sayo sighed.

"Of course I'll tell you about him," she said. "My Yuito is the best son there is! He's never let me down before. He used to bring me things he thought I would like. He would go to the town and buy things for me. He was the smartest son a person could ask for, and he was certain to have a very bright future. He was just like his late father, you know. At least, everything was going well until he met that woman. That damn Tsugumi... I never liked her. Yuito could have done so much better, but no, he decided to fall for a liar and a thief! And that's exactly what she was- she stole Yuito's financial information, as well as everything else of value that he had and disappeared." Here, her voice began to break up. "He... he disappeared a few days afterwards. I've been looking for him ever since."

"I'm sorry," Itachi replied, honestly feeling sorry for the woman. So it seemed that the old story was true- the ghost of Big Moose Lake was still looking for her missing son, who seemed to have indeed been cheated by a con-woman.

"Yuito... Yuito..." Hidan mumbled to himself. "Why does that name sound so familiar?" He stared into the fire for a moment. "Yuito Hidaka... I could have sworn I heard that name somewhere before."

The four of them sat silently around the fire for a while, just staring at the crackling flames, each of them thinking of something different. Itachi was thinking about how difficult it must have been for a woman like Sayo to lose her only son, a son she obviously cared a lot about. Hidan was mulling over the name in his mind. He was sure he knew of a Yuito Hidaka although who was to say that it was the same one? After all, in most cases someone of that age would be dead, but you never knew. Tobi was panicking- he'd managed to bungle up again and get everyone in a dangerous situation. Who knew how violent the old woman would turn if she realized that he really didn't know where her son was?

However, Sayo was thinking herself. She already knew that these people didn't know where her son was. It was obvious from the way they acted. The dark-haired one was constantly jumpy, as though he half expected her to bite him, the albino was certain that he'd heard her son's name somewhere. That was a clue- obviously if they knew where he was he would know exactly who she was talking about. She shouldn't have been surprised- the orange one didn't seem to know what he was doing.

Finally, she decided to do something about it. "Can we stop this, please?" she asked. "I already know that none of you know where my son is. Your orange friend here seems to think that he knew my son, but I can tell right now that he lied to me."

"I wasn't lying!" Tobi exclaimed. "Your son sounds like Deidara-sempai!"

"Deidara-sempai?"

"He's one of our teammates," Itachi explained quickly, trying to offset ghost-rage. "Apparently the way you described your son sounded like you were describing our teammate." Sayo nodded.

"Well, that would make since..."

"I'VE GOT IT!" Hidan suddenly shouted. "I remember looking through the family records that Pein-sama keeps! I know where I heard your son's name!"

"You- you do?" Sayo asked.

"Yeah! And Tobi wasn't far off the mark! Yuito Hidaka was the name of Deidara's great-grandfather! And his great-grandmother's name was Tsugumi Sato!"

"You're kidding," Itachi said weakly. "That's... completely insane. Do you know how many miles we are from Iwagakure?"

"Nonsense!" Sayo exclaimed. "My son would never have... he never... well, it's not possible. He wouldn't have gotten that woman pregnant- never!"

"So... you're Deidara-sempai's great-great grandmother?" Tobi asked. "Awesome."

"Now Tobi," Itachi warned. "There's no definite proof of that. All we're going on here is Hidan, and who knows if he's right or not?"

"Shut the fuck up," came Hidan's tesre reply.

"Sayo-san," Hidan asked quietly. "If you saw Deidara, do you think you'd be able to tell if he was related to your son?"

"Of course," Sayo said. "But it's not possible. My Yuito would never have done anything like that!"

To Be Continued

Author's Comments:

Happy holidays, everyone! I finally managed to cobble together a makeshift draft for this story, although it takes a lot more editing than it would if I had the official draft. Still, I'm going to try to update this again before New Year.

-Kaboom


	9. In Which Pein Is A Jerk

Chapter Nine: In Which Pein Is A Jerk

The four of them sat quietly around the fire until the others returned. "Who the hell is this?" Dark Zetsu demanded to know, gesturing at Sayo. "And why is she here?" Light Zetsu added, agreeing with his other side.

"Is she going to give us a new boat?" the ever-frugal Kakuzu asked. "Because that would be a lot more cost-effective than buying a whole new one."

"Who are you?" Pein demanded, getting up in the old woman's face. She just glared at him.

"I'm looking for my son. These people-" she said, gesturing at Itachi, Tobi, and Hidan, "think that one of their teammates is my descendant. What was his name- Dodara? Deidara?"

"Deidara," the bomber in question said, stepping forward. "You wanted to see me-un?" Sayo took in the appearance and immediately nearly fell over.

"My god..." she whispered. "Yuito. He looks exactly like my Yuito!"

"Yeah," Deidara said, slightly nervously. "My great-grandfather was named Yuito. My grandmother always said that I looked exactly like him. I never got to meet him, so I always took her word for it." Sayo responded to this by getting up into his face and peering into his eyes.

"My Yuito had brown eyes, not blue! But that horrible Tsugumi had clear blue eyes like yours."

"Yeah, yeah!" Deidara replied. "My great-grandmother was named Tsugumi." The ghost suddenly sat down on the log she had been sitting on earlier and buried her face in her hands.

"All this time, my son was still alive and with that con-artist," she cried in despair. "And they even had children together! That wretched Tsugumi woman's blood lives on today! I can't believe it! I thought my son left to get away from her, not to go with her!"

"Um," Deidara said hesitantly, "My grandmother told me the stories of how her parents ended up where they did. Supposedly great-grandmother found out she was pregnant and ran away for fear of getting into trouble. Great-grandfather didn't want anyone to know that they had been impure before marriage, so he concocted a scheme to seem like great-grandmother ran off with his finances. He then faked his own suicide to go and be with her-un. That child that great-grandmother was carrying became my great-uncle Ayase. After him, my great-aunt Tomoko was born, then my grandmother-un. But one thing grandmother was always wanted me to know was that my great-grandparents might not have been rich and didn't live in ideal circumstances, they really cared about one another-un." Sayo sighed.

"So all this time I've been living a lie, huh?" she said. "Tell me, Deidara-san. Is your... is your great-grandfather alive today?"

"No... he died in 1916," Deidara replied. "He is buried in the Iwagakure graveyard if you'd like to visit him. I can't go with you there, but you'll find him buried next to great-grandmother and his children."

The two of them discussed things for a while, and soon enough, Sayo stood up and walked away.

"I am going to visit my son's grave," she pronounced. "Deidara-san told me where it is, and I'd like to give that boy a piece of my mind. Who knows? I died a long time ago and I'm still around here. Maybe my son will have taken after his old mother and is still lurking around." Then, she turned and bowed to Deidara. "Thank you," she said simply. "I appreciate your help."

"Goodbye, great-great grandmother," Deidara replied, mirroring her bow.

* * *

Once the ghost-woman had gone, Pein said something incredibly insensitive. "So now that we've solved the mystery of the ghost, what are we going to do about our boat?"

"Shut the fuck up, you insensitive bastard!" Hidan swore. "Can't you read a fucking situation? You don't fucking say shit like that when someone just met their long-dead relatives! Fuck, I swear you get denser by the fucking day!"

"You're not exactly helping matters either, you know," Kakuzu said lightly.

"NONE of you are!" Itachi exclaimed.

Indeed, Deidara had shuffled away from the group to sit in silence. While he was glad that his great-great grandmother found the answers she never found in life in death, but he would have liked her to find her peace earlier. And he would have liked to speak to her longer. It's not very often one gets to meet a relative who passed away over a hundred years ago. He would have liked to find out more about his lineage. While his grandmother had told him some things, she obviously didn't know everything. He had never gotten to meet his great-grandparents. Deidara had some questions- was the hand-mouth thing hereditary through that branch of the family, or was it another line? He never knew his father, and his mother had died when Deidara was two. He would give anything to understand about the strange bloodline limit he had inherited. But he guessed it was too late- he'd probably never see the ghost-lady again, and he wouldn't be able to ask her.

Meanwhile, Konan was berating Pein, which was becoming something of a regular thing. "No, we cannot go back to the lake house! And you should know why! What kind of leader are you if you can't even figure out why?"

"Is this about Deidara being depressed?" Pein asked irritably. "Because all he has to do is call Ghostbusters!" He laughed at his own joke.

"You're a fucking dumbass, not to mention a callous fool," Hidan said in disgust.

"In case you haven't noticed," Konan snarled, "we're still missing someone!"

"Has Pein-sama always been this much of a douchebag?" Dark Zetsu wondered aloud. Kakuzu shrugged.

"It comes and goes, I think."

"I heard that!" Pein shouted. "Both of you are getting paycuts!"

"I don't think that's very smart..." Tobi said gravely. "After all, Kakuzu handles the finances! And if you think he's going to give himself a pay cut, you might need to go see a doctor, Pein-sama! He's the one person who would _never_ do anything to make his financial situation any worse!"

"Even Tobi can be smart sometimes!" Hidan exclaimed. Kisame, who had been silent this entire time, rolled his eyes.

"So, are we going to stand around here all night, or are we going to go look for Sasori?"

To Be Continued

Author's Comments:

See, I said I'd update before New Year, and look what I did! :) Ok, enough self-pride. To be honest, even though this chapter was completed very quickly, I still found it very difficult to write. I spent most of today (12.27.09) in front of the computer trying to type this, except for the break when I went to Wal-Mart to buy more contact lens solution. And snack breaks. But that doesn't count.

Basically, without the original draft (which I stupidly left in the break room), it's very difficult to write this story, and it doesn't help that every time I try to write this, someone's phoning me, or the messenger is going off, or I have to go do some menial chore, or I need to do the laundry... the list never ends.

Anyway, I don't know if I'll be able to update again before New Year. In case I can't, have a great New Year celebration, and may 2010 be a lucky and prosperous year for you.

-Kaboom


	10. Arguments

Chapter Ten: Arguments

As he crashed through the underbrush, Sasori couldn't help but feel a little bitter. Who knew how long he had been missing? And none of his comrades had bothered to come find him. For all he knew, they would be sitting around a campfire singing Kumbahyah and toasting marshmallows for s'mores. "Typical," he muttered to himself. "I'm sure Tobi is off doing something completely idiotic and everyone else went running after him... if they even managed to find each other."

Even though he had learned in the Academy that if one got lost like this that they shouldn't wander around, especially if it was night, Sasori didn't care. He was going to find those idiots, and when he did, he was handing in his resignation. If Pein could bungle up a simple boat trip this badly, what was to say he wouldn't bungle up the whole world domination thing even worse? No, Sasori could take over the world easier without dealing without these people and their moronic ways.

* * *

In all actuality, Sasori's expectation wasn't that far off the mark, although with one major difference. Tobi wasn't the one causing problems. Instead, Konan and Pein were involved in a heated argument. "You are such a fucking bastard, you know that?!" Konan hollered. "Do you even think through the consequences of your actions? And now you don't even want to go look for your missing subordinate? What kind of leader are you?"

"A smart one!" Pein bellowed back. "I'm not stupid, Konan! Going to look for Sasori in the dark is suicidal!"

"And trying to take over the world isn't? You can fight everyone and their brother, but you're afraid of the dark?"

"I'm not afraid of anything!" Pein yelled. "I just don't think it's a good idea to go tromping around the woods in the dark!"

"This is getting stupid..." Hidan muttered under his breath.

"Do you think they're going to break up?" Dark Zetsu asked.

"What are you talking about? They weren't together in the first place..." Itachi replied.

"Hah! I knew your eyesight was going, but I didn't think it was that bad yet. Anyone with eyes, whether they function well or not could see that the two of them were hot and heavy,"Kakuzu snorted. "Where did you think those two went on the weekends? Wal-Mart?"

"I thought they _did_ go to Wal-Mart," Tobi interjected. "How do you expect all the laundry detergent that they brought back after those trips?"

"Uh..." Kakuzu said. He had forgotten about the detergent.

"This is so fucking stupid..." Hidan spat in disgust. "I think we should just go find Sasori on out own. Who's coming with me?"

"I am!"everyone said in unison, leaving Konan and Pein to argue.

* * *

"Oh yeah? What about the time I told you to go to the drugstore to pick up some Midol and soda and then you and Itachi went out and got drunk?" Konan shouted. They had long passed the stage of arguing about relevant things, and the whole situation had devolved to screaming at each other about past wrongs.

"What?!" Pein roared in outrage. "You should pick up 'women's things' yourself? Do you know how much of a fool I'd look like if I picked up those things?"

"My cousin Mieko's husband buys those things if she asks! Why can't you do anything right?"

"_I_ can't do anything right? I seem to remember that _you_ were the one who lost $400 to that scammer on cold remedies!"Pein retorted.

"You were the one who had the cold, dipshit! And you're the one who bought Hidan a Christmas present! You know he _hates_ Christmas! He got so pissed he destroyed half the lair!"

"Well excuse me for trying to be nice!"

"Oh, and I seem to remember a certain incident involving week killer," Konan snarled. "What happened again? Oh yeah, you decided you wanted the lawn to look nice and sprayed that shit everywhere, forgetting that Zetsu lives with us! He almost died that time!" That was a low blow. Pein actually did regret that incident, and would react violently if anyone was stupid enough to bring it up. Never mind that Zetsu had forgiven him after making a full recovery. Pein never did deal with shame and regret very well...

"Shut up, you stupid bitch!" he screamed. "It's not my fault, no matter how hard you try to make it seem that it is! Get the fuck out of my organization. I don't want to see you again. Never."

"That's perfectly fine with me!" Konan shouted. "I don't want to see you ever again, either! I'll go back to the lake house and get my stuff. You won't have to see me anymore."

"Good," Pein spat. Konan turned to leave, and then thought the better of it. She turned around one more time, a cruel smirk on her face.

"Oh, by the way, Pein, don't flatter yourself if you ever find another woman. Your dick is abnormally small. The first time we had sex I was curious, so I looked it up on the Internet. You're tiny." She turned away, laughing slightly to herself, leaving a shell-shocked Pein behind. Just before she was out of earshot, he collected himself enough to scream back:

"Oh yeah? Well, you're fat!"

To Be Continued

Author's Comments:

If it's financially possible for you, please donate to help the earthquake victims in Haiti. There is a link to UNICEF on my profile- they are taking collections for disaster relief.

-Kaboom


	11. How to Find a Friend

Chapter Eleven: How To Find a Friend

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Zetsu, stop trying to eat the goddamn owls!" Hidan exclaimed angrily. The plant-man looked guiltily around before letting an irritated, fluffy, hooting bird free.

"But I'm hungry!" his light side whined. "Yeah!" his dark side agreed. "And owl is delicious! You guys are really missing out! In fact, I'll share if I can catch another one."

"YOU CAN'T EAT THE OWLS!" Kakuzu hollered, shocking everyone. "If you hurt an owl in front of me, I'll kill you myself!"

"What's gotten into you?"Hidan asked, surprised. Kakuzu looked around guiltily.

"Alright, alright, I'll tell you. When I was a kid, I took care of this owl I called Helga. I loved that bird." He began to wax nostalgic, and everyone watched him with varying expressions of shock.

"That's completely insane,"Hidan said, "but it kind of fits. Well, it would explain a lot... why you always hid that owl photo book in our room and pretended you didn't know anything about it, or why your sister sent you that plush owl for your birthday that year, and you threatened to cut out the heart of anyone who looked at it. Goddamn, I remember you almost killed Pein-sama when he accidentally stepped on it."

"Well, he should learn not to step on people's shit!" Deidara exclaimed. "He stomped all over my boxers when I was trying to pack-un."

"What were your boxers doing on the floor?" Kakuzu retorted.

"What was your owl doing on the floor?" Deidara countered.

"Why are we even talking about this? I don't care about plush owls or Deidara's boxers," Itachi said. "Although I'd rather discuss the plush owls... I really have no interest in Deidara's boxers."

"That's what you want us to think!" Tobi sing-songed, getting some very confused and worried glances from the others.

"Am I the only normal one around here?"Kisame asked no on in particular. Deidara just snorted.

"Yeah, as though you're normal, sharky."

"Oh will you all be quiet!" Dark Zetsu finally shouted. "I'll stop trying to eat the owls, but we really should be focusing on our actual objective. Isn't that finding Sasori?"

"Yes," everyone muttered in agreement.

* * *

Sasori was clomping through the woods when he heard something that made him stop in his tracks. "I really have no interest in Deidara's boxers," said a voice that sounded a lot like Itachi.

"That's whayt you want us to think!" a cheerful, child-like voice chirped. Sasori would recognize that voice anywhere. It was Tobi. And it seemed to be coming from somewhere to the left and ahead of him.

"Am I the only normal one around here?" he heard Kisame ask, which helped him steer himself closer to where the others were.

"Yeah, as though you're normal, sharky." Damn it, he was so close, he could hear them all and their obnoxious inflections. But where the hell were they? He could hear them perfectly- why couldn't he see them?

"Oh will you all be quiet!" Dark Zetsu's voice shouted, somewhere off to the right, now. "I'll stop trying to eat the owls, but we really should be focusing on our actual objective." What was he talking about, actual objective? Sasori wasn't really sure what the hell was going on around here. "Isn't that finding Sasori?" Almost as soon as Dark Zetsu had said that, Sasori saw a bunch of feet standing around from underneath a bush. Finally. He burst through the bush, extremely grateful as well as extremely pissed to find his comrades.

"Holy shit, Sasori!" the ever-eloquent Hidan exclaimed by way of a greeting.

"Dude, you have no idea what you've missed. This shit is crazy!" Kisame exclaimed. "We met Deidara's great-great grandmother, and Pein and Konan broke up!" He didn't even give Sasori a chance to say anything before he continued. "Believe it or not, everyone thought that Deidara's great-grandfather committed suicide, but he really ran away with his pregnant girlfriend, and that's how Deidara's family started, get it? And then Pein and Konan started screaming at each other. I haven't ever seen them that pissed at each other!"

"What in god's name are you talking about, Kisame?" Sasori asked somewhat coldly. "How could Deidara meet his great-great grandmother. She must have passed away long before he was born."

"She did," Itachi answered.

"Haven't you ever heard of a ghost?" Tobi asked.

"A... ghost."

"Yeah, a ghost!"

"Danna," Deidara began. "I know it sounds crazy, but we actually did my great-great grandmother. Remember that picture of the old woman in the lake house?"

"Who could forget that?" Sasori shuddered, remembering the portrait's creepy stare.

"Believe it or not, she was my great-great grandmother-un! And it was Tobi who found her! It's amazing! I thought I'd never get to meet anyone from my family, much less one who died a long time ago!"

"Yeah, it was quite the amazing family reunion," Light Zetsu said. "But we need to get back to the lake house. I don't know about you guys, but I feel like every moment we spend out here the more likely it is that we're going to die. I don't want to be around when any bears show up."

"Bears? Where!?"Itachi asked in a panic.

"THERE ARE NO BEARS HERE, ITACHI!" Hidan shouted.

"Oh. In that case, we should get going before the bears show up."

* * *

Pein was shell-shocked. Konan had never screamed at him like that before. But he supposed he shouldn't be surprised... he had been acting like a dick, although he would never admit that to anyone other than himself. After all, he was the leader. He was supposed to give the orders and the others were supposed to follow them perfectly!

And now he didn't even know where the rest of his organization was. They had all bogged off somewhere, and he had no idea where. But he wasn't about to risk his own safety to go look for his idiotic subordinates, especially not in the dark like this. If he was going to go after someone, it would have to be Konan! She was a woman, and a woman alone at night in a big scary forest. No matter what angle you approached it from, it was a bad plan. It was either something you would see in one of those slasher movies- the clueless lead would wander off alone into the big damn creepy forest, or the big damn creepy haunted mansion, or the big damn creepy carnival, or the big damn creepy abandoned shopping mall, or the big damn creepy deserted hospital- or something you would see on the 9 o'clock news about how someone died- they wandered off into the big damn creepy forest, or the big damn creepy haunted mansion... oh fuck it, why was he sitting here freaking out when he should be going after her?

To Be Continued


	12. The Other Day I Saw a Bear

Chapter Twelve: The Other Day I Saw A Bear

Most people would have been terrified to be stomping through a creepy forest in the middle of the night. Who knew what was lurking around out there- perverts, muggers, hungry forest creatures, dangerous natural features... anything could happen to you if you weren't careful. But Konan didn't care. She was the second-in-command of one of the most notorious terrorist organizations in the world. She could handle anything that came her way.

It took her nearly an hour and a half to find her way back to the lake house, which was pretty good, considering that she didn't have a clue which way it was when she set off. Once she got inside the house, she started tossing her belongings into her suitcase. In went her bathing suit and the pants she had hung up in the closet. She rifled through the top drawer of the dresser that she had put her lingerie in, gathering up her more intimate garments and unceremonious dumping them into her suitcase. She tossed her extra cloak into the suitcase, and on top of that, she put her music player and carefully wrapped it up to protect it. In the bathroom, she gathered her cosmetics and threw them into a plastic shopping bag, tied it off, and placed it into her suitcase as well.

"Well then," she said to no one in particular, "Pein can think about what he did when he realizes that I wasn't kidding. Hopefully he left the car keys here..."

Konan ended up scouring the house for the keys to one of the rental cars. Luckily, she found one set of keys on top of Itachi's pillow. It made sense- he liked to keep things in places that he would notice easily. Taking the keys, she unlocked the car, tossed her baggage into it, and drove off. Pein was going to have to deal with it, she figured. She did feel kind of bad about leaving only one car for the rest of the organization- after all, none of them had done anything like Pein, but she didn't think she could stay in the same area as the ginger bastard without trying to gut him.

* * *

Meanwhile, said ginger bastard was crashing around in the dark, tripping over tree roots, swearing loudly, stepping on snakes, and accidentally kicking rocks. Oh, and ranting to himself. "Damn Konan, where does she get off telling me what to do?" he exploded at no one. "I'm the leader of Akatsuki, I control everything that goes on regarding my organization! Konan should just listen to me! And now she's gone and run off- that stupid woman is probably dead by now! Doesn't she know that women shouldn't wander around in the dark?"

He was so loud that he alerted every creature in the forest to his presence. Now, the badgers and bunnies and squirrels and deer weren't much of a threat. Most of them just wanted to be left alone and wouldn't bother the obnoxious, wayward traveler. But unfortunately, Pein alerted something else to his presence. Something that did not appreciate being woken up. Something that was big, fuzzy, and territorial. Something with very sharp teeth and claws.

"GRAAAAAH!" Pein jumped in alarm when he heard the angry growl. He looked around wildly, but did not see anything. Shrugging and thinking that he must have imagined it, Pein continued on his way, until he heard the sound again. This time, he figured out where it was coming from. He shrieked in terror as he realized that an oversized grizzly bear was charging straight at him. Blindly, he tried to think up anything jutsu he could use to stop the oncoming onslaught of angry bear, but couldn't gather the mental clarity to perform any genjutsu. He groped around for a weapon, but couldn't come up with anything other than a few shuriken. He flung them, and while they managed to slow the beast down for a short amount of time, but before long the bear was back up on its feet. And now it was even more pissed than it was before: if it had its way, Pein would be scattered pieces of flesh by now. With that goal in mind, the creature advanced, ready to end Pein. The Akatsuki leader shut his eyes, preparing to take it out with taijutsu when all of a sudden-

"I TOLD YOU THERE WERE BEARS HERE! MANGEKYOU SHARINGAN!" Pein's eyes snapped open, and he had to breathe a sigh of relief. Itachi was standing stock-still in front of the equally frozen bear.

"That idiot really wanted to attack a bear-un," Deidara said, stepping out of the woods with the rest of the group behind him. "Who do you think will win?"

"Obviously Itachi," Hidan said. "He's already got that fucker trapped. Give it a few minutes- that bear will not last too much longer."

"Hey! Pein-sama!" Tobi cried.

"What?"

"Pein-sama's here?"

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU, PEIN-SAMA!" Sasori screamed.

"Sasori, where's Hiruko?" Pein asked, not in the least alarmed by Sasori's threat. He'd just faced down an angry bear, after all. Of course, this only served to enrage the puppet-man even more.

"Thanks to your incompetence, destroyed!" Sasori hollered. "You crashed the boat! I must have landed on rocks or something, because when I came to, I realized that Hiruko was nothing but splinters, and I had to drag myself out of the wreckage! But I won't have to worry about your incompetence any more, because I quit!"

"You're not the first person to say that to me tonight," Pein muttered. That caught Sasori off-guard.

"What do you mean?" he couldn't stop himself from asking.

"Konan ran off after we had a fight," Pein replied, unable to bring himself to tell Sasori that the subject that had caused that huge fight was... him. "And now she's probably wandering around these woods all lost, alone, and scared."

"Hardly," Dark Zetsu snorted. "I doubt Konan-sama would be stupid enough to run into a bear like you did. Seems like you were more the one who was alone and scared."

"You're getting a pay-cut," Pein snapped, not wanting to deal with any of Zetsu's schizophrenic rantings at the moment. "And what's taking Itachi so long?"

"He's probably having fun," Kisame explained. "Sometimes he goes a bit overboard, and it takes longer than you'd expect for him to finish."

"Well, tell him to hurry up! We need to save Konan!"

To Be Continued

Author's Comments:

We're coming up on the end of this story soon... two or three more chapters, probably, unless I can think of something else to do with it. But thank you to everyone who has supported me so far. It means a lot to me that people like to read my work.

-Kaboom


	13. Admit It

Chapter Thirteen: Admit It

It took another four hours for our intrepid heroes to find their way back to the lake house, although in retrospect it was a miracle that they found it at all. Hidan kept tripping over tree roots, Tobi got his left foot stuck in a badger hole (and said badger was not too pleased about having his home invaded), Zetsu got into an animated conversation with a giant creeper vine named Mabel, and Itachi kept trying to Mangekyou every forest creature he came across.

"Oh for fuck's sake, Itachi!" Sasori finally hollered. "What did that field mouse ever do to you? Let it go, you're wasting time!"

"Shut up," Itachi snarled back, continuing to regard the furiously struggling rodent with a calculating glare. "I've never attacked a mouse before... wonder what it's like?"

"You don't need to Mangekyou a mouse," Kisame said pragmatically. "It's overkill. Just stab it with a kunai and get it over with."

"If Ninjas for the Ethical Treatment of Animals finds out about this, they're going to kill you-un!" Deidara exclaimed. Kisame shuddered.

"NETA is insane," he said. "I still remember the time that they tried to throw me to the sea when I was a child because 'a young shark should be in the ocean with his family, where he belongs!' Never mind that my family was on the land and I'm only a shark-guy because of an accident with an ancient scroll when I was a baby!" Everyone made sympathetic noises. The majority of them had had run-ins with some kind of activist group when they were younger, although Kisame's story was more extreme than most.

"Stop talking and walk!" Pein suddenly interrupted. "Kisame, we've all heard the story about the time they pulled a Free Willy on you! I don't care! We have to go and protect Konan!"

"She's not going to want your protection..." Light Zetsu muttered under his breath, while Dark Zetsu snickered. "Who wants to bet that the poor bastard will have papercuts all over his dick by the time she's through with him?"

"Ha! He won't even _have_ a dick by the time she's done with him!" Kakuzu snorted derisively.

"Kakuzu's right- you don't fuck with Konan," Itachi agreed.

Pein heard his entire organization laughing at him, but decided to pay them no mind. He'd take it out of their paychecks later, anyway. They'd just have to learn the hard way that it's not nice to mock your employer, at least not if you wanted to get a living wage. Who cared if he broke a few labor laws, anyway? Terrorists don't_ have_ labor laws.

When they finally managed to find the lake house, however, Pein's cocky confidence shattered into a million pieces. Instead of seeing both rental cars parked outside of the residence and a little light on in the window, there was only one car and the house was as dark and silent as a funeral home after closing time. Of course, the red-headed Akatsuki leader immediately thought of the worst.

"Oh my god," he breathed. "Someone must have kidnapped Konan and forced her to drive away!" Everyone else exchanged bemused glances.

"Do you really believe that, Pein-sama?" Tobi finally had the gumption to ask. The pierced man just stared at his subordinate for a minute, as though he was daring him to continue. Tobi gathered the courage and added, "because we all heard the fight that the two of you got into. Do you think that maybe she just got angry and went home to the lair?"

"Yeah, really," Hidan said. "I think there might have been some people on the moon that didn't hear the two of you break up!"

"WE DID NOT BREAK UP!" Pein shouted. "How can we break up if we weren't together in the first place?"

"Oh please," Deidara snorted. "Do you think we're blind? Or deaf-un? After what happened back on Halloween I was afraid to sit on the sofa for months. Finally Kakuzu fumigated it, so we can use it again!"

"Or the time it was my turn to do the laundry and Konan brought the sheets from her room downstairs. You don't get stains like those from, uh, 'lady trouble' like she said," Light Zetsu mumbled, embarrassed.

"Or what about the time I found some of your more... _personal_ items in the shower?" Itachi added. "None of us need condoms since none of us have girlfriends, or boyfriends, or it-friends," he continued. "So who else would need them?" Pein was at a loss for words. He was certain he had done a good job of hiding his and Konan's relationship from the rest of the guys, but apparently they were sharper than he expected. Well, that and he probably should have found a better hiding place for the, uh, protection. But he couldn't admit to that, so he contented himself by trying to deflect attention away.

"What were you doing in my shower in the first place?" he asked angrily. "You're not supposed to be in there!"

"Remember last July?" Dark Zetsu said, well, darkly. "When Deidara got drunk?" Pein winced. He'd forgotten about that. Hidan thought it would be fun to have a cocktail-mixing contest, and since Deidara lacked mixology skills, he had volunteered to be the judge. After quite a few margaritas, the bomber had to use the toilet, and while he was in the bathroom, he thought he'd seen a spider in the shower. It was just a piece of lint, but being inebriated, he was unable to tell that. Also being inebriated, he thought it would be a good idea to blow up the big scary spider with C4 explosives. The resulting boom had trashed the shared bathroom, as well as that half of the house, and the contractor that was supposed to fix it ended up falling down some stairs and badly hurting his back. As a result, Pein and Konan's shared shower had to be used by everyone for about a month. Pein felt his stomach drop. How could he have been so stupid as to leave those things in the shower?

"T-that doesn't prove anything," he said quickly.

"Really." The looks of disapproval on everyone's faces quickly shut him up, however, and he finally broke down.

"Alright, alright, we've been in a relationship for a while," Pein began. "But lately things haven't been going as well as they should. Part of my plan in taking this trip was to reconnect with Konan, but it failed miserably."

"No shit, Sherlock," Hidan said scathingly. Pein glared at him.

"And now I've ruined everything," he finally said, despair tainting his voice. "She's going to leave me and we'll never be the same again."

"Trust me, if I know Konan, and I think I do, she will have stopped off at a hotel somewhere," Kakuzu stated.

"Yeah, that's right, she hates driving at night!" Tobi agreed.

"If we take a few minutes to pack up our stuff we might be able to catch her-un," Deidara said. Pein nodded.

"Let's go fix my relationship!"

To Be Continued


	14. Mobile Phones Are Not For Eating

Chapter Fourteen: Mobile Phones Are Not For Eating

Konan sighed as she drove down the road. She was rather tired, thirsty, and in need of the bathroom, but she was worried that if she stopped it would give Pein time to catch up with her, which would be a disaster. She really did not want to experience the scene that she knew would follow once the ginger-haired manaic found her. He would drop to his knees in front of her, grovel, beg, plead, and importune her to take him back. If she refused, he would run off and return with half a year's salary in trying to buy compensation presents. Truly, it was pathetic to see a grown man begging.

To distract herself, she busied herself with messing with the radio dials, trying to find something to take her mind off of the obnoxious scene that she knew she would be waiting for her sooner or later. She found a talk radio station and decided to listen to it, The callers into the show were all discussing some new tax on shuriken that had just about everyone riled up, on both sides of the debate. Currently, "Midori" was treating everyone in the listening area to a rather obnoxious rant about how the tax was going to damn every single shinobi in Fire Country to a life of ruin. "So you see, we cannot let this tax pass! If we have to pay 200 ryo for every single shuriken we buy, that's just like handing the world over to the Akatsuki! We'll be overrun with terrorists and their supporters, and the world will fall! Do _you_ want to live in a land ruled by S-ranked megalomaniacs?" she shrieked, her voice piercing Konan's ears. The radio show host must have thought something along the same lines as Konan, because he politely thanked Midori for her comments, then went to the next caller.

"And here we have 'Shigeru', from Konoha! Shigeru, what are your thoughts on the shuriken tax?"

"My thoughts on the shuriken tax?" a suspiciously familiar voice said. "I don't care about the shuriken tax! I can make my own shuriken, and I don't even use them that much!" Konan blinked. There was only one person she knew who made his own shuriken....

"Itachi?" she asked herself. "What's he doing calling into this show? He hates politics!" But it definitely did seem to be Itachi. Their voices were _extremely_ similar.

"Well, if you don't care about the shuriken tax, is there something else you'd like to discuss? There are a lot of hot-button issues that our listeners would love to hear your thoughts on!" the radio host said.

"Yeah, there is one thing," the suspiciously familiar voice said. "The Akatsuki. What a bunch of idiots!"

"You think the Akatsuki are idiots?" the radio show host asked, shock radiating from his voice. "What drives you to think that?"

"Are you kidding me?" the caller said. "I have it on, uh, really good authority that the Akatsuki leader is a dumbass who can't drive a boat and completely ruined his relationship with his girlfriend! Most of his subordinates are about to mutiny, do you hear me? He's caused, er, well, I've heard he's caused millions in damage to the property of the organization, and almost accidentally killed one of his own subordinates with a bottle of weed killer! Come on, anyone that incompentent can't rule the world."

"HEY! ITACHI! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" an _especially_ familiar voice screamed. "Shigeru" swore under his breath, but it was bleeped out for radio.

"_BLEEP_. Zetsu! Here! Eat the phone so it can't be traced!"

"You got it, Itachi!" There was a loud crunching sound over the radio, and then the dial tone sounded.

"Uh, ladies and gentlemen, I think we just listened to an internal power struggle within the Akatsuki!" the radio host announced. "Although I want to know what they were thinking, calling in to a public radio station!"

* * *

Meanwhile, a very irritated Pein lined his organization up outside of the gas station they were stopped at. Zetsu moaned, clutching at his stomach. "Ugh.... mobile phones don't agree with my digestive system," his light side complained, while his dark side added, "For fuck's sake, someone get me a goddamn antacid!"

"Technology never did agree with him," Deidara said sympathetically. "Remember when he ate that television-un?"

"Who could forget? Stupid Zetsu barfed up cables for days!" Hidan said disgustedly. Pein just glared.

"Who was it who called the radio station! And why would you do that!"

"I know Konan likes to listen to that show," Itachi muttered mutinously. "I thought she might listen to it and hear what has been going on ever since you decided to start this stupid scheme!"

"And then you did it while my back was turned! And you even gave the evidence to Zetsu so he could eat it! What were you guys thinking?"

"I'm with Itachi on this," Deidara agreed. "Pein-sama, if Konan-sama really wants to leave you, why don't you let her? Like my grandmother always said, there's plenty of other fish in the sea-un. You'll find someone else, someone even better to rule the world by your side! Someone like... _me! _Only, you know, a girl." Pein's eye twitched.

"I'm going to pretend that Deidara didn't just come on to me," he said.

"I didn't hit on you! I'm just saying that a girl who likes to blow things up and has an appreciation for art would make a great co-ruler of the world for you!"

"Well, it sure sounded like you were hitting on me," Pein replied, his voice acidic. "And I don't want anyone other than Konan! She was supposed to be the mother of my children! The queen to my king! The Juliet to my Romeo! The Bella to my Edward!"

"Did you let him watch _Twilight_ again?" Kisame hissed to Hidan. "I thought I told you to block Moviemax since he doesn't need to watch any more stupid romance movies! You know how he gets!"

"Hey, the universal remote is fucking complicated," Hidan replied. Kisame just rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, that's beside the point," Pein pontificated. "And we're _going_ to get Konan, even if it kills me!"

"Uh, Pein-sama?" Tobi said quietly. "You know how Konan is really angry with you right now?"

"Of course, how could I forget?" the ginger-haired Akatsuki leader replied.

"Well, it actually might kill you. _She_ might kill you."

"No she won't," Pein said smugly. "She can't kill me. She loves me, deep down. She won't be able to kill me."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Kakuzu muttered under his breath. "We are criminals, after all."

* * *

Deciding she'd had enough of this stupidity, Konan decided to pull over and call Itachi's phone. Even though she already knew that he was the caller to the show, she wanted to figure out exactly what was going on that would have made him phone in. Obviously he was very irritated, considering he called into a talk radio show (Itachi always did hate talk radio- he thought it was full of right-wing nutjobs and liberal whiners). She dug around her baggage for her phone. When she found it, she flipped it open and dialed the familiar number.

* * *

_I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it huu~urts_. Someone was singing in the car, and it was pissing Pein off. "Goddammit, whoever's singing that needs to stop! I absolutely hate that song!"

_I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it huu~urts._ "I don't think it's any of us, Pein-sama," Sasori replied. "I don't think any of us are idiotic enough to sing something like that where everyone can hear." Itachi furrowed his brow.

"Uh, I had that song as my ringtone," he said, "but Zetsu ate it. How can it be ringing now?"

_I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it huu~urts. _"I think my stomach is singing!" Light Zetsu exclaimed in shock. "Yeah, usually it's one of us that sings, not our stomach!" Dark Zetsu added.

"My phone is ringing!" Itachi cried. Zetsu looked around panicked.

"How do I answer it?" both of his personalities asked in unison.

"I don't know, you're going to have to cough it up!" Itachi said, practically hysterical. Zetsu looked scared, of all things.

"But I don't want to!"

"COUGH IT UP!" Pein roared. "What if it's Konan?"

- - - -

Konan was about to give up. She'd tried calling three times already, but there was no answer. But on the fourth ring of the fourth try, someone picked up. "Hello?"

"Which one of you am I speaking to?" she barked by way of a greeting.

"I'm Zetsu," said the voice, which she recognised as his dark side.

"Was it Itachi that called into that show?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Let me talk to him."

To Be Completed

Author's Comments:

The next chapter will be the last one. Thank you to everyone who's read and reviewed so far.

Actually, I would have had this up a while ago, but some things happened. I somehow managed to make it into university (I don't really know how that happened), and as an "Oh my god you're not going to plug cables in for the rest of your life" present a friend got me Plants vs. Zombies, which I've become addicted to and play all the time. It's a lot of fun, if you get the chance, check it out.

-Kaboom


	15. A Reconciliation END

Chapter Fifteen: A Reconciliation

Zetsu turned to Itachi and held the phone out. "Konan-sama wants to talk to you," his light side said. Itachi viewed the mobile phone with distaste.

"I don't want to touch something you barfed up, Zetsu!" he exclaimed. Zetsu rolled his eyes.

"Just take the phone," both of his personalities sighed in unison. Itachi gingerly took the device and held it as far away from his ear as he possibly could. There was _no way_ something that nasty was getting close to his face, even if it could possibly save his job.

"Hello?"

"Itachi?" he heard Konan ask. "What the _hell_ were you thinking, calling in to that radio show?"

"Because I know you like to listen to the radio," Itachi replied. "And if there was even a chance that you might hear me, it was worth it, because things really suck right now. Please, for the love of god, agree to meet us somewhere! You and Pein really need to work this out, or we're all doomed! He's despondent because you left him, and he keeps saying really weird things! He's been watching too many romance movies lately, and it's starting to affect his brain, I think!"

"His brain was already affected," Konan scoffed. "Itachi, it's over between us. If you want my advice, it's best to just cut your losses and move on. I'm sure you'll find another job soon."

"Are you out of your mind?" Itachi yelped. "Do you know how hard it is for S-ranked criminals to find a decent-paying job?"

"Yeah," Deidara agreed, even though he could only hear Itachi's side of the conversation. "For a lot of us it's either become a terrorist, a prostitute, or the 'you wanna buy a watch guy'-un."

"Did you hear Deidara?" Itachi asked. "Because he has the right idea! It's impossible to find a good job! Akatsuki was the best job opportunity that presented itself! If it wasn't for you and Pein-sama approaching me for this job, I'd probably be working at the Pearl Glass!" he exclaimed, referencing a seedy bar on the outskirts of Konoha famous for its male exotic dancers.

"You're a smart guy," Konan countered. "I'm sure you could find something else." To that, Itachi let out a barking laugh.

"Maybe, but no respectable company wants to hire a criminal." Konan sighed into the phone. Itachi was being very difficult regarding this whole thing. She just wanted to get back to the lair, get her things, and maybe move back in with her mom or something. Anything but have to stay where Pein was. As far as she was concerned, the relationship was as good as dead.

"You're not going to give up until I speak to Pein, are you?" she asked.

"No," Itachi replied.

"Well then, hand him the phone!"

"No," Itachi stated. "I think, and everyone agrees with me, that the two of you should meet face to face and work out your differences. If you do this, and it's still unrepairable, then we'll all look for new jobs."

Konan thought for a moment. Itachi seemed really desperate to get the two of them to reconcile. Not that she could blame him, or any of them for that matter. Their livelihood basically depended on the cohesion of the Akatsuki, and if a fight between the leaders ruined all of that, they would all be out of a job. But to Konan, that was just a shame. She really didn't think she could handle being around Pein for that long...

"Alright," she finally said. "Name a place."

* * *

Half an hour later, Konan had parked at a local fast-food restaurant, feeling very stupid. Who knew if Pein would even turn up? Did she even _want_ him to turn up? If you asked her, her immediate response would be an adamant "NO!"

But four years of being together is a difficult thing to let go of. Every time she shut her eyes, she could see Pein bringing her doughnuts, or some silly stuffed toy he'd found at the local discount store, or randomly bringing her flowers. She would remember the times that Pein randomly called a holiday so that he could take her somewhere nice (and it got him the respect of the rest of the group too- everyone likes a day off now and then).

And then she would remember the bad things, as soon as she started to think of the good things Pein had done. His stunning insensitivity when it came to delicate situations always had the capacity to ruin everything. The ginger-haired man always managed to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, and rarely a week went by that he hadn't offended one of his subordinates, with them threatening to leave the organization.

A beeping car horn dragged her out of her thoughts, and she looked up with surprise. She hadn't expected them to get there so fast. Itachi jumped out of the car and ran toward her. "Konan," he said gravely. "I don't really care what it is you decide to do, but for the love of god, calm him down! He wouldn't shut up the entire way here, complaining about how much he loves you and how he's willing to do anything for you if you just take him back." It didn't take a genius to figure out who Itachi was referring to.

Konan just sighed, and replied, "Itachi, I don't know if I can patch things up with him. He's pushed this relationship to its limits." Itachi nodded.

"Well, at least try to make it a clean break, alright? For our sakes?" Konan agreed, and before long she and Pein were sitting at one of the outside picnic tables while Kisame went in to buy them something to drink.

"Please, Konan! I don't know what it was that I did wrong, but I want you to take me back!" Pein cried desperately. "I can't live without you, Konan!" Said woman shifted nervously. How does one even respond to something like that?

"Pein..." she began, but he cut her off before she could say anything else.

"Was it about what I said to Deidara?" he exclaimed. "Because I already apologized to him, and he said that it was fine, that it happened all the time and that he forgave me! Please, Konan, don't leave! Deidara forgave me for my stupid comment, why can't you?" It truly was pathetic to see a grown man grovel. It was even more pathetic when that grown man was the Akatsuki leader.

Figuring she might as well get it off her chest, Konan began to relay her issues to Pein. The forced vacation, the terrible driving, the boat crash, his unwillingness to try to help his subordinates, his constant lack of common courtesy, all of these things she managed to tell him in a very calm and controlled manner. He nodded soberly as she explained all of this to him. "I had no idea," he finally said once she had stopped talking for a few minutes, "Why didn't you say something before?"

"Because I didn't think it was that much of a problem," Konan replied. "But I probably should have. I let things get out of hand."

"So you'll take me back?" Pein asked hopefully.

"HERE'S THE SHAKES!" Kisame roared, interrupting what might have been a beautiful reconciliation by presenting two super-sized chocolate milkshakes to the couple. "Enjoy!" Konan looked at the shake, then looked at Pein, then looked back at the rest of the Akatsuki, who were all lurking behind the car in a way that they fondly imagined as inconspicuous, and then looked back at the milkshake.

"Alright. We can try again."

Two Weeks Later

Things had been relatively normal since the Akatsuki had returned from its ill-fated lake trip. Sasori had tried to resign, but was talked out of it by Deidara, who had begged his danna not to leave him alone with Tobi. Also, interestingly enough also involving Deidara, Sayo had shown up in the middle of the night, scaring the crap out of Kakuzu and Hidan. "Where's Deidara-kun?" she asked loudly at 2:00 AM, causing a startled Kakuzu to have two simultaneous heart attacks and a terrified Hidan to fall out of bed cursing his head off. "N-next door down," Kakuzu managed to stammer once his palpitations stopped.

"Goddamn, fucking ghosts should know better than to appear out of nowhere in the middle of the fucking night like that! Fuck!" Hidan had muttered once he'd calmed down enough. Kakuzu just rolled his eyes.

"That's what ghosts _do, _idiot!" he had retorted.

As it turned out, Sayo had found the graves of her son and daughter-in-law. Although they were not there at the time, a local ghost said that they tended to turn up in November, and to come back then if she wanted to speak to them. So she had set about finding her next-closest kin to stay with, at least until she might be able to finally be reunited with her son. As it happened, that was Deidara. After a bit of explanation to Pein, he decided the elderly ghost lady could stay.

So that day, two weeks later, everyone but Pein and Konan were sitting around watching a television drama. "Feh, this is weak!" Hidan complained. "Why does Sakurako not simply kill her fiance and go with the man she so clearly desires to be with?"

"Because it's a _television drama_," Zetsu's light side said patiently, while his dark side added, "Besides, I like Daigoro better than Hayate. He looks tastier."

"You're really damn creepy, you know that?" Kisame said, edging away from the multiple-personalitied plant. Sayo just laughed.

"You know, after living alone for so long, it's nice to come somewhere where everyone can argue over things like television shows!" she exclaimed. Everyone agreed that indeed, it was nice to spend time with like-minded people.

They were just getting to the finale of the episode when Pein barged in, waving a piece of paper around. "Hey, everyone! I have a plan for a trip that can't possibly go wrong! Let's go to the seaside!"

_**END **_

Author's Comments:

This _might_ (emphasis on the might) have a sequel. Maybe, maybe not, it all depends on what else I need to do. At any rate, don't look for any sequel until around July, since I have examinations coming up, as well as the need to prepare to move (since by some miracle I managed to get into university). Anyway, thank you all for reading and reviewing throughout this story!

And a bit more happy news: the newest member of the extended Kaboom clan was born on 4.3.10! My baby cousin is doing quite well, and is scheduled to come home today! :D

-GoesKaboom 4.5.10


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